They were all sorts of varied and dazzling "betting posts."
[A MONUMENTAL WAGER! 10 MILLION IMPERIAL COINS ON THE CHAMPION OF THIS YEAR’S FOURTH-LEVEL BRACKET! OFFICIALLY NOTARIZED!]
[CASUAL POOL FOR LOOSE CULTIVATORS! PREDICT THIS YEAR’S TOP 100! ALL BETS FINAL! NO IOUs!]
[DARK HORSE WATCH! WHO WILL BE THIS YEAR’S BIGGEST SURPRISE IN THE NEWCOMER CUP? ODDS STARTING AT 1:1000!]
These bets all used the officially issued "Imperial Coins," not the "Contribution Points" that served as the hard currency among Martial Artists.
For these chosen children of Canaan Starry Sky Martial Arts University, it was just as Xiong Yanfu had said: they were purely in it for the fun of it, to add some extra excitement and spectacle to the grand event.
’Imperial Coins...’
A thoughtful look flashed in Qin Feng’s eyes.
He himself had no real use for them, but his father and uncle, far away on Morning Star, still belonged to a social class that had to struggle for Imperial Coins.
If he could win a large sum and send it to them, it would dramatically improve his family’s quality of life.
With a thought, he checked the Imperial Coin balance in his personal account.
[Imperial Coin Balance: 100,000]
This was part of the reward from the Empire when he earned the title "General Star of Morning Star." He had spent some of it and given some to his father, but hadn’t touched the rest since.
For an ordinary family, one hundred thousand Imperial Coins was a huge sum of money.
But in these betting pools, which easily reached tens of millions, it wouldn’t even make a ripple.
He scrolled through a few of the popular pools and found that all the bets were on well-known favorites. No one had set up a separate bet for a "nobody" like him.
"Heh heh, Old Qin, checking out the betting lines?"
Just then, a sly-sounding voice whispered in his ear.
Xiong Yanfu had sidled up to him at some point, wearing his signature, merchant-like grin.
"Want in on something more exciting?"
He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper only the two of them could hear. "Those big pools are shady, and the odds are fixed. It’s no fun. I’ve privately contacted a few thousand idle rich guys on the forums, people like me with too much money and nothing to do. We’ve set up our own prize pool, a small one, just to bet on who the biggest dark horse in this Canaan Newcomer Cup will be!"
"And don’t worry, I haven’t leaked a single thing about your true strength!"
Xiong Yanfu winked. "In everyone else’s eyes, you’re still just that unremarkable freshman who’s been here for ten years. I’m going to bet my entire personal stash on you to win! When we rake it in, we split it fifty-fifty. How about it?"
Lei Meng, who was standing nearby, overheard a snippet of their conversation and couldn’t help but chime in. "Fatty Xiong, it’s not like you’re short on Imperial Coins. Why go to all this trouble?"
"Tch, you wouldn’t understand!"
Xiong Yanfu waved his hand dismissively, a smug look on his face. "I’m not in it for the money. It’s about the intellectual satisfaction of masterminding a strategy that secures victory from a thousand miles away! It’s purely for the thrill. You battle-crazed lunatics would never understand!"
Hearing this, Qin Feng simply gave a slight nod and said calmly, "I’m in."
"Haha!"
Xiong Yanfu was overjoyed. He slapped Qin Feng on the shoulder excitedly. "Old Qin, I knew we were cut from the same cloth! We share a common interest in these games of intellect!"
"No."
But Qin Feng just shook his head and smiled.
His smile held a complex emotion that none of them had ever seen before—a mixture of warmth and reminiscence.
"My father is a one-armed Martial Artist."
"When I was young, I contracted a strange illness that damaged my foundation. I was nearly cast out from the path of the Martial Dao completely... You could say I was a burden to my family for many years."
Qin Feng’s tone was flat, as if he were recounting a memory that had nothing to do with him.
But his words landed like a series of hammer blows on the hearts of everyone present.
The good-natured smile on Lei Meng’s face vanished.
The smug look on Xiong Yanfu’s face froze solid.
A flicker of emotion crossed Temu’s stoic, mountain-like face.
As for Qin Lan and Yin Jing, their eyes were wide with utter disbelief.
None of them could have imagined that this genius, who had risen to prominence in their eyes with monstrous talent and dazzling brilliance, was actually shouldering such a heavy and painful past.
Almost all of them were second-generation martial artists.
"So,"
"I just want to earn a little extra money to send their way."